Saudi Arabian rider Al Eid takes Al Riyadh to dazzling victory

Dubai: Yesterday's competition in the Dubai show-jumping Championships started off with a national class for juniors and young riders.

This class was a speed class, one round against the clock.

The course proved tricky and saw only five out of the 14 youngsters go clear.

It was Mohammad Y Al Nowais from Abu Dhabi Equestrian Club, riding Flamme Du Loup, who won the first prize with an amazing time of 56.67 seconds.

His closest rival, Shaikh Shakhboot Al Nahyan from the Emirates Heritage Club, riding Cool Fox M, was a whole four seconds behind him on a time of 60.64 seconds and no penalties to add.

The international show jumping on Wednesday started with The Welcome Stakes.

Ebrahim Bisharat of Jordan, on Al Boraqu, won first place.

This class involved one round of show jumping against the clock.

Ebrahim steered Al Boraqu cleared all the jumps in the fastest time of the class, 55.89 seconds.

Ebrahim gave his opinion on winning first place: "I felt that the course was nice and welcoming for the horses, so I went for the top spot and it just happened to go my way. This is a great start for the Jordanians," he said.

Next in the line up was Fahad Al Eid riding Lucky Star 42 for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

He also completed the course with no penalties in a time of 57.23 seconds.

Speaking later, he said: "I found the course a bit technical and I feel lucky to have got second place."

Third and fourth place went to the UAE's Shaikha Latifa Al Maktoum on Cover's Pride and Qatar's Mubarak Al Rumaihi on Sauver.

Throwing light on his result Mubarak said, "This was my first competition on Sauver de la Cour so I am very happy with my result.'

The second international class was a competition jumped in two phases, with riders only going through to the second timed phase if they were clear in the first phase.

Only 14 of the 36 starters managed to clear the first phase while half of the 14 managed to get a clear in the second phase.

First place went to Saudi star Khalid Al Eid riding Al Riyadh.

Khalid won team gold in the Asian Games last month and an individual bronze medal at the Sydney Olympics.

His talents were on display as he pulled off a double clear in a time of 34.93 seconds.

Summing up his round he said, "I was one of the first few riders to go so I had to put a bit of pressure on, but this was okay as I had believed that my horse was capable of what I was asking of him."

Rashid Al Hosani of the UAE aboard Ikea 3 finished second.

Rashid rode a beautiful double clear round, in a breezy time of 35.99 seconds, which at one point looked like toppling Khalid off his top spot.

"I'm really happy with second place. Hopefully, I will keep up the good work as the qualifiers during the next two days are very important for me," said Rashid.